End Game - Where the real playing starts.

What a blur of a couple weeks it has been! I managed to hit 50 of course, though I did it the night 1.3 dropped. Just could not get it done before hand. Speaking of 1.3 the world event has been a blast so far. Lot's of new daily quests to do, at this point Phase 2 is going on and the second set of dailies are in full swing. Judging from the length of time between Phase 1 and Phase 2 the next Phase (3) should be here any day now.

Now, end game... What a complete change in tempo once you hit 50! I went from mindlessly grinding quests alone to constantly bouncing from one group activity to another with my Guild Mates. Between doing the daily Expert Rift or running down defiant with the new PvP dailies it's been none stop group fun. I have even managed to get my gear to a point where I can get into T2 dungeons. I can't tank them yet though, only run DPS as a MM/Ranger or Support as a Bard. But I must say I like how Trion did the dungeons.

Each dungeon is available in "normal" mode while you are leveling up, and each one has a set level range you can play in. Once you hit 50 and can enter Tier 1 or Tier 2 dungeons you are basically repeating the first ones, however they are extended with more boss encounters, in some cases extending the story lines as well.

There are only two things I have not had a chance to do yet, Raid Rifts and Raid Instances. Both require a few more geared out level 50's than my guild can field right now and getting into a PUG for either one can be very hard.

I have a video of me hitting level 50 however I have not had a chance to upload it to Youtube yet, once I do though you can expect to see it here :) Until then enjoy this nice image of Sanctum castle post 1.3

Sanctum Castle after 1.3 changes

To 50, and Beyond!

Well, the new patch and all the exciting changes comes out tomorrow. Before it gets here though I would LOVE to make level 50. I am currently level 48 and roughly 3/4's to 49 so I believe it would be totally doable for me to make 50 tonight if I really push myself and don't get distracted with playing the Auction House ^_^


Speaking of the Auction House, how much fun is that! I must have spent 50p in the last two days getting my Apothecary skill up to max level so I could start pumping out the black and white dye. And now that I finally can I have been spending much of my time "playing the auction house" as my guild calls it. Buying materials to make Dye as cheap as I can then selling Dye and undercutting other sellers so mine will sell. Fun times even if I don't seem to be making any money. :(

For tonight though, I want to focus on Questing and Dungeon runs. I have yet to play through AP or CC so I have the quest bonuses for those two dungeons to look forward to. And I still have some quests in Stillmoor I can work on. I am up to the large Caldera where a death rift looms menacingly. I am told that area is Solo content even if it does look tougher than anything before it.

Well, here's hoping my next post brings good tidings and an annoucement that I made level 50 :)

Invading the Enemy

It finally happened, I went on a mad killing spree in Stonewood the other night. Many Defiant lost their lives (or at the very least had to respawn). My favored tactic was to come up from behind and send my Wolf at them while I flung arrows from a safe distance. The astute reader would know of course that I was in the low level Defiant zone killing "lowbies" a most dishonorable act.

The PvP die hards know though, you roll on a PvP server and this is what you need to expect. Some wild crazy higher level player just running up and stomping on you from out of nowhere. Well, this weekend, that wild player was me!

The festivities of that night culminated when a massive invasion started in Stonewood. I sat quietly and waited while the Defiant players fought back invasion forces and closed Rifts, then once the boss appeared I decided it was time to reveal myself. Of course being the ONLY Guardian there I focused on attacking the boss instead of trying to get any more kills. I figured even if I was double their level they would dominate me through sheer numbers at that point. I even managed to capture the boss fight ^_^







While I did participate in the fight I was not awarded an achievment for beating him :( Oh well, I still enjoyed myself and managed to get away without getting mobbed by the horde.


Another interesting video I took over the weekend was during an invasion in Moonshade, once the boss spawned everyone raced to him and began taking him down. The best part was a rather large army of Defiant players came as well, you can see everyone kind of popping shots at one another through out the fight. And look for the moment when I realized I could use my AoE skills and damage the Defiant tanks as well. Afterwards of course a rather fun fight broke out between both factions, good times all around I'd say!






End of Weekend Level - 42

Trip to Meridian Postponed

In my last entry I was thinking about going to the Defiant capitol of Meridian. Mostly for the fun of it of course, not looking to "grief" any low level players. Unfortunately I found out some rather disheartening facts, even though it would be in the Defiant starter zones I would still get flagged for PvP and the NPC guards would automatically attack me. Considering I am only level 32 at the moment I figured I should probably postpone my little trip until I get to a higher level and have a chance at surviving. :)

In the mean time I have been playing a lot more PvP while trying to finish up quests in Silverwood. I know the XP gain in Silverwood is little for me now, most of the mobs are grey to me, but it lets me enter and exit PvP with little chance for zoning back on top of some beasty with my pet dead and me not long behind them. I also believe there is an achievement for finishing all the quests in Silverwood so there is that to look forward to.

As for PvP I have finally decided that Ranger is probably the most fun, and rewarding, soul setup available to Rogues. Others might argue that Assassin's would be, but there is something extremeley satisfiying about KIT'ing a real person, unlike simply sneaking up behind them and bursting them down. Playing as a Ranger also affords me the chance to send my pet after someone while running away ^_^ Nothing worse than having some random razorbeast attacking you from behind is there?

Trion recently added an incentive to use the random dungeon finder, a chest at the end of the dungeon that awards you an item for your class. I must say this has reinvigorated my interest in the instanced dungeons. Even though I normally only do one dungeon a night I find myself looking forward to them more often.

I have taken some more videos of encounters with boss level monsters however I have not had a chance to upload them to Youtube yet. Hopefully my next post will be filled with some great videos of Telara.

End of day level - 32

Onward and Upward!

After a marthon 5 hour session last night I finally managed to make it out of the GloamWood area and into Scarlet Gorge. And may I say the Gorge area just looks fantastic! While I spent only enough time there to find the Porticulum so I did not have to walk/ride back what I have scene of it so far impressed me.

During my time in GloamWood though a very cool thing happened, as I was doing my quests a couple of random players came up behind me and invited me to their party. Turns out they were doing the exact same quest line I was so we were able to stay together for the better part of 3 hours. After pushing our way through many quests and an Invasion though they needed to go just as we accepted what would turn out to be the last leg of quests in Gloamwood. Devastated I tried to continue on by myself knowing that the area ahead would be very tricky to do alone.

Just then I noticed two OTHER players ahead of me, as luck would have it they were questing along the same set of quests I was, only one set behind! After getting invited to the party I helped them through those and then went with them while they back tracked to pickup the quests I was on. After a few more battles and some cool banter with the NPC's we had killed the Old Hag and made it out of Gloam Wood!!!

At this point my self and my new companions were tired and decided to call it a night. I rode ahead to Scarlet Gorge picked up the Porticulum point and zoned back to Sanctum to sell off / auction off nearly 4 hours worth of loot.

While it may sound like I had a grand time last night, it was smeared a bit with the foul stench of "griefing". Before joining up with anyone I was questing alone in Gloam Wood, a contested area and PvP enabled. (I play on Briarcliff a PvP server) I wont name drop the individual but there was a level 50 Defiant Rogue camping out side the main city in Gloam Wood stalking low level players. While I understand that rolling on a PvP server comes with things like this I never expected to get ganked two times in a row by someone "lowbie hunting". It was all in good fun though and eventually he did die to a couple level 50 Guardians who came to our rescue!

On a side note, I really do need to remember to record more videos and snap more pictures. Blog posts without any media are a little... boring :(

Play that funky music Rogue boy!

Ahhh another day, another entry in the diary. I guess this post is going to cover the last couple days in Telara... to be honest I was quite busy yesterday with yard work and just playing Rift ^_^ I found out that I could level up quite nicely just playing PvP. I would say I easily went from level 23 to 24 ONLY playing PvP. Mixing Black Island and the Codex Warfronts.

Last night however I wanted to try something a little bit different, so I ponied up the 4 platinum and bought my 3rd role from the trainer and went 100% Bard (well more like 95% bard and 5% bladedancer? the defensive soul for Rogues). While playing a Bard is not exactly hard, nor does it really require much in the way of strategic thinking it does offer one very useful trait. The "LFG" tool pegs me as a support class and I get into groups nearly instantly.

Playing 100% Bard I was able to run 3 dungeons last night. And even in the face of extreme boredom I got a good look at the other side of the table, support and healers. Normally I start out any type of MMO as a Warrior class and eventually end up getting bored but with Rift something made me want to be a stealthy assassin popping out of the woods and bursting enemy players down. Yes, I totally do that during PvP matches but when grouping for a raid there are about 1'000 other players on the server looking to do the same thing So playing a Bard lets me experience the game in a new way while also completing the lower level dungeons.

Now other than that, not a lot to report. I have a feeling the "game" wont start until I hit max level so that is my goal from here on out, level, level, level and more level. Speaking of which I need to go hit up the forums and ask some questions about my new Bard skills and the potential for Rangers in Solo PvE, while I am away here, look at a cool picture I took last night while standing on a mountain range in GloomWoods.